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Google reportedly developing iOS soft keyboard with search functions

By Marcus Wong - on 23 Mar 2016, 2:43pm

Google reportedly developing iOS soft keyboard with search functions

 

The current keyboard for Android could be adapted for iOS.

Sources say the search giant has been working on a keyboard for iOS in attempts at increasing mobile search numbers.

According to a report by The Verge, Google has been developing a third-party keyboard for iOS that incorporates the company’s search engine as part of the interface. The keyboard will incorporate a variety of search methods, and allow for gesture based typing, so you can slide your finger from one letter to the next, and Google will try to guess your intended word. 

There will also be a Google logo that you can tap to access the traditional search, and distinct buttons for pictures and GIF searches. Apparently, the keyboard has been in circulation among Google employees for months, but there has been no word as to whether or when Google intends to release it.

While the company’s search engine has practically become synonymous with “search” on the internet, it seems those numbers come mostly from the desktop and are not quite translating to mobile on a daily basis. 

This may seem contrary to Amit Singhal’s presentation (head of search at Google parent Alphabet Inc.) at the Recode Mobile conference when he said that the total number of searches on mobile devices just started to outnumber those from desktop computers. But if you compare the sheer difference in numbers as Charles Arthur did, then you’ll find that the number of searches from mobile works out to about just 0.98 per day.

Arthur further posits that most people use web search to get to the web sites they use the most, rather than to find information. In today’s mobile age, these sites have largely developed their own mobile apps, so users can just run the app to get what they need rather than to go through the web. Singhal says the search engine currently can’t look within apps either, and that they are currently looking to index apps in search results. 

Sources: The Verge, Wall Street Journal, The Overspill

 

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